September 5, 2009

• Back to my fascination with Joe Meek. . .

   

  Another song produced by Joe Meek. 

  
  
  

  From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

  Have I The Right? was The Honeycombs debut single and biggest hit. It was composed by Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley, who had discovered the Honeycombs (then known as The Sheratons) playing in the Mildmay Tavern in Islington. The group were due to audition for independent producer Joe Meek and they played the song for him. Meek decided to record it there and then. It was the last Top 10 UK hit produced by Joe Meek, who composed and produced "Telstar" for The Tornados, and reached #5 in the U.S. "Have I the Right?" was recorded in German as "Hab' Ich Das Recht?" b/w "Du sollst nicht traurig sein" (Deutsche Vogue, DV 14210).

  "Have I The Right?" was covered by Petula Clark on her 1965 album, The International Hits. The song was also covered in 1977 by The Dead End Kids. Their version peaked at #6 in the UK pop charts. The song was covered by the Dead Kennedys on the 1979 live album, Live At The Deaf Club and by Les Fradkin on his 2006 album "Goin' Back". The single of Fradkin's version is at Apple iTunes.

  Meek's legacy

  Despite not being able to play a musical instrument or write notation, Meek displayed a remarkable facility for writing and producing successful commercial recordings. In writing songs he was reliant on musicians such as Dave Adams, Geoff Goddard or Charles Blackwell to transcribe melodies from his vocal "demos". He worked on 245 singles, of which 45 were major hits (top fifty).

  He pioneered studio tools such as multiple over-dubbing on one- and two-track machines, close miking, direct input of bass guitars, the composer, and effects like echo and reverb, as well as sampling. Unlike other producers, his search was for the 'right' sound rather than for a catchy musical tune, and throughout his brief career he single-mindedly followed his quest to create a unique "sonic signature" for every record he produced.

  At a time when many studio engineers were still wearing white coats and assiduously trying to maintain clarity and fidelity, Meek, the maverick, was producing everything on the three floors of his "home" studio and was never afraid to distort or manipulate the sound if it created the effect he was seeking.

  Meek was one of the first producers to grasp and fully exploit the possibilities of the modern recording studio. His innovative techniques—physically separating instruments, treating instruments and voices with echo and reverb, processing the sound through his fabled home-made electronic devices, the combining of separately-recorded performances and segments into a painstakingly constructed composite recording—comprised a major breakthrough in sound production. Up to that time, the standard technique for pop, jazz and classical recordings alike was to record all the performers in one studio, playing together in real time, a legacy of the days before magentic tape, when performances were literally cut live, directly onto disc.

   

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